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The Forge of Fury
The one piece of the Ashen Crown in their possession acted as a map to the other pieces. The four remaining parts were located in Sharn, Droaam, the Icewood, and Taer Valaestas. Leaving Gin in the care of the Kech Volaar, they started their journey to Sharn with Ekhaas representing the Kech Volaar and Kaziim fulfilling his blood dept. They found their passage through the Seawall Mountains blocked by a cave-in. They attempted to explore the abandoned mines in the passageway and were attacked by hobgoblins that had taken up residence in the mines. They rescued two captive goblin children, but one fell to his death off a rickety rope bridge while he fled. Returning the children to the city, they met with Dekor d’Kundarak, a representative of his House and the Deep Mine project. He told them that the cave-in was caused by the hobgoblins in the old mines that attacked workers at the Deep Mine on the other side of the mountain tunnel. They stole their blast disks, one of which must have gone off in the conflict, causing the cave in and trapping some of their men. Only three are on this side of the collapse. He tells the party that he’ll not only pay them if they help recover the disks, but he’s owed a favor with someone at House Jorasco and can get them to use an Altar of Resurrection on Gin. The party agrees to find the disks, make their way through the abandoned mines, and use the old mine shaft on the other side of the collapse to deliver the disks. He sends one of his dwarves along with the party at their request. Once more, they return to the mines and head in. They locate a secret passageway and slip inside, killing some sleeping hobgoblins along the way. Eventually, they stumble across the living quarters of some of the hobgoblins. Hohenheim spots an oddly large slug-like creature that’s attaching itself to one of the hobgoblins. He lights this hobgoblin on fire and chaos ensues. The rest of the party bursts in, killing the warriors. It became apparent that the hobgoblin Hohenheim had lit on fire was a pregnant woman. So was the one he shot with a crossbow. They defeated the Great Ulfe, the chieftain, and Hohenheim disguised himself as the chieftain to trick the remaining hobgoblins into following his commands. This, of course, led to their near-immediate deaths as they were killed by large, flying insects soon after. Ekhaas identified some of the hobgoblin marks as that of the Kech Sharaat, a militant tribe of hobgoblins in Darguun. Some papers in the Great Ulfe’s possession confirmed this, but also seemed to indicate that the hobgoblins had been here for some time and had slowly slipped into insanity. The party descended further into the mines, passing through a sealed door warning others not to let out what lay behind the doors. Past the doors, they found the remains of hobgoblins from the Daelkyr Wars thousands of years ago and records indicating that, like the newer hobgoblins above, had slowly gone mad. After fighting off a number of aberrations in the caves, their dwarf companion fled back the way they had come, sealing the door behind him out of cowardice. The party, with no recourse back, continued on. While exploring down a large hole, they came across a tentacled creature disguised as a stalagmite. It sapped Ixen’s strength, sending him into the underground river, but he was rescued before he could drown. Siegfried, meanwhile, had darted past the creature and found a key on the skeleton of a long-dead dwarf. After a long rest, the party made their way to a sealed door, indicating the entrance to the Glitterhame, the mines proper. The recently discovered key unlocked this door and they continued on, though they triggered an alarm that alerted the duergar now living in the mines to their presence. After a brief fight, the two groups made a truce. The party would be allowed to pass through if they turned over a sword they had recovered in the caves that belonged to the original dwarven owner of the mines. After they had done so, the duergar led them to the exit to an underground lake. There, they fought and killed a young black dragon that had abnormal growths. They also found a book buried beneath the dragon’s hoard that seemed to contain strange, prophetic passages and information about what had been happening in the mines. The dragon also had the blast disks in its hoard. Further in, they located the mine shaft that would take them to the surface. They also found the remains of a much larger black dragon that had been buried beneath a collapsed ceiling. Hohenheim, wanting to inspect the corpse, set off a blast disk at this location. The resulting explosion shook the caves, dislodging more rubble and causing its own cave in. After digging their way back into the chamber where the dragon’s corpse had been, the found that the blast disk had damaged something beneath the dragon’s corpse: a large magical seal. The party began having strange visual and auditory hallucinations that briefly raised suspicions amidst the party. An eerie glow grew from the crack in the seal, slowly assaulting the senses and thoughts of the party until they fled a safe distance away, back to the duergar. They sheltered the party until Dekor came down himself to make up for his companion’s cowardice. Along with Dekor, they found an alternate entrance to the mine shaft and left the mines behind. Back on the surface, they gave all but one of the blast disks to the Deep Mine workers and warned the Zilargo official of the danger down below. Dekor thanked them again and gave them a letter for Jode d’Jorasco, his contact at the Sharn Jorasco enclave. The party grabbed a ride on the lightning rail and headed for Korranberg. See The Glitterhame Documents for information on the snippets of text uncovered in the mines.